London

We arrived in London at about 3pm. We walked over to the hotel, changed, grabbed some tea, then headed out to do some walking around in London. We started at our hotel then walked down to Leicester Square, Covent Garden, Chinatown, Picadilly Circus, Trafalagar Square, Parlement and Big Ben, then headed over to the London Eye. Yeah, it was a bit touristy, but it was actually really cool. Along the way we grabbed a few pints and split a beef and ale pie.
We then headed to the pub next to the hotel to finish up the night with a few more rounds and some food. We saw this a few other places: a sampler platter of marinated lamb kebabs, calamari, falafel, chicken, fires, onion sticks, hummus, and small bits of fried dough.
The next morning we grabbed the breakfast from the hotel, which was not the nicest breakfast I have ever had. Apparently, the breakfast closed about 10 minutes after we sat down, which became obvious as they started putting stuff away around us and then started sweeping up around us, etc. The food was really quite good. They had a full English set up: egg over medium, toast, bacon, baked beans (preferably Heinz), breakfast sausages, baked tomatoes, black pudding (blood sausage), and a bunch of other buffet-type stuff. We then headed out to Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, and Knightsbridge to check out the high-end shopping, especially Harrods. We grabbed some theater tickets for later that night, and grabbed some lunch in Harrods food court. He headed back, grabbed a quick pint, then headed out to see the play Entertaining Mr. Sloan. The play was quite good, the only problem being that you could take drinks into the theater if they were in plastic cups. Unfortunately, this meant that about 20 minutes into the first act, the two pints from the lobby caught up to me.
Afterward, as we didn't check into which places had late dinners, as 10 pm is the latest that most pubs serve food. So we ended up at an "American-style" restaurant Garfunkels. This was the only place in Europe that had Budweiser on tap, and not the Czech Budweiser (unrelated and very tasty). This was the one from St. Louis. I mean so many good beers in London, and we picked the place that had none. The food was fine, but I was happy that we didn't need to go back.
Friday we spent the day walking around in Camden Town, checking out the market and eating lunch in a pub (sandwich of brie and tomato and then a meat pie). We then took the metro back down to walk around some of the parks, then headed back to the hotel to change before heading out. That night we took the "Jack the Ripper Tour" around the City of London and around the edge of White Chapel. While this may have been a bit hokey, the guy who gave the tour trained with the guy who is considered to be one of the world's experts on Jack the Ripper. The tour was about one part history and one part goofy/gristly details.
The next day we grabbed breakfast at a Lebanese place on the way over to the British Museum. The British museum is fricking nuts. It is one of the largest museums I have been to, and it contains impressive antiquities from about about every civilization that had been occupied by the British. As Lonely Planet stated "Why go to Iran, Iraq, Africa, Greece, etc. when you could create a world-spanning civilization and then take artifacts back to your capital?"
After the museum, we had a few drinks and some dinner at an Italian place before meeting up with my friend Saad for drinks. We hit a few fun bars around the hotel before heading back to the hotel at about 1am, when the pubs close. Jamie took off the next morning for Heathrow and I headed over to Saad's place for the rest of my London Stay.